The Obama administration is again doubling back on its Syrian war policy. On Dec. 11, the Saudi-backed Islamic Front rebels inflicted a disastrous defeat on the pro-American Free Syrian Army in northern Syria. debkafile reports that Washington reacted by launching a secret approach to win over the Islamic Front, the most powerful force now battling the Assad regime. Voices in Washington are urging the White House to start talking to Bashar Assad, leading the administration to consider forming a Syrian lineup to save the country from falling to Al Qaeda.

Bashar Assad’s army achieved a signal strategic breakthrough Sunday, Dec. 8, by its conquest of Nabuk in the Qalamoun Mountains. The rebel forces have been thrown into disarray, leaving only Jabhat al Nusra and the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda fit to fight Assad. Syrian rebels have therefore found Washington turning a cold shoulder and developing indirect contacts with pro-Assad army elements and, through British diplomats, Hizballah. On the Syrian uprising’s 1,000th day, the same US-Russian-Iranian coalition which fixed the Geneva nuclear accord is moving into position for a Syrian solution.

Turkish-Iranian intelligence cooperation has produced an operation against Syria rebel supplies through Turkey. Tehran wants to redirect Turkish exports from its Israeli route back to Syria, and use the Turkish route to promote Iranian products in Europe.

Some Syrian rebel chiefs controlling Damascus outskirts are clinching private ceasefire deals with local government army officers, a trend spreading to other cities. debkafile: These local deals are evolving into joint patrols of rebel-held districts. This trend offers the prospect of wide areas seized by the rebels reverting to government control without a fight and the two camps joining forces to combat the spreading encroachments of Al Qaeda. Assad hopes he will start looking better in Washington and ease the pressure over the chemicals issue.

A convoy of about 100 Syrian army trucks was sighted Monday, Oct. 15, transporting a large consignment of chemical weapons from their big depot at the Al Safira military base east of Aleppo to another facility in the town of Hama, some 160 kilometers to the south, debkafile discloses. This was the first time in the more than two and-a-half years of the Syrian civil war that a large shipment of chemical weapons has been moved out of Al Safira, where also CW-capable Scud missiles are stored.

Large Syrian forces through Tuesday night, Oct. 8, tightened the siege on the rebel-held town of Khan Arnabeh which is the key to controlling the main highway from the capital, Damascus, to the Syrian Golan. The town is expected to fall quite soon. Its capture also provides the key to the central crossroads around the Golan town of Quneitra and will enable the Syria army to return to the UN-policed disengagement zone dividing the enclave between Syria and Israel. debkafile: The rebels are putting up no more than token resistance.

DEBKA Weekly exclusively reveals the high points of the Obama-Putin-Iranian deal for Syria’s chemical weapons and its extrapolation for Iran’s nuclear program. While Obama agrees to starve the rebels of military support, he accepts massive Russian arms supplies to the Syrian army.

debkafile: The Western military armada built up opposite Syria in the past two weeks is breaking up as the US president’s resolve for military action faded under relentless pressure from Moscow. The British and French ships headed out Wednesday, Sept. 11, through the Suez Canal, and the American warships pulled back to waters between Crete and Cyprus. Obama has thus caved in on his original intention to keep the war armada in place for heat on Assad to comply with the Russian plan for the elimination of his chemical weapons.

Syrian opposition activists reported between 200 and 650 dead in a poison gas air strike by government forces on rebel-held areas of eastern Damascus Tuesday, Aug. 21. This has not been verified. The regime denied the accusation. debkafile reports the first major incursion Saturday, Aug. 17 of Syrian rebels from Jordan into southern Syria, after receiving US training in special operations. Bashar Assad has said that if Damascus was in danger, he would resort to chemical warfare and the entire Middle East including Israel would go up in flames.

Al Qaeda fighters from Chechnya and the Caucasian seized the key northern Syrian air base of Minakh Monday, Aug. 5. debkafile: This was the first important gain by Al Qaeda’s North Caucasian brigade, Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar, and its Chechen commander Abu Omar. They caught Syrian troops at the base and executed them by slashing their throats or beheading. If these jiahdists move on Syria’s borders, they will confront Israeli, Jordanian and US forces based in the Hashemite kingdom with a different and fearsome kind of terrorist savagery.

Obama had finally approved military intervention in the Syrian conflict when the Saudis and the emirates vetoed his plans for fear they would lead to Syria’s disintegration instead of a unified Sunni state.